WASHINGTON (AP) — John Glenn, whose 1962 flight as the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth made him an all-American hero and propelled him to a long career in the U.S. Senate, died Thursday. The last survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts was 95.

Glenn died at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where he was hospitalized for more than a week, said Hank Wilson, communications director for the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

John Herschel Glenn Jr. had two major career paths that often intersected: flying and politics, and he soared in both of them.

Before he gained fame orbiting the world, he was a fighter pilot in two wars, and as a test pilot, he set a transcontinental speed record. He later served 24 years in the Senate from Ohio. A rare setback was a failed 1984 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

His long political career enabled him to return to space in the shuttle Discovery at age 77 in 1998, a cosmic victory lap that he relished and turned into a teachable moment about growing old. He holds the record for the oldest person in space.

More than anything, Glenn was the ultimate and uniquely American space hero: a combat veteran with an easy smile, a strong marriage of 70 years and nerves of steel. Schools, a space center and the Columbus airport were named after him. So were children.

The Soviet Union leaped ahead in space exploration by putting the Sputnik 1 satellite in orbit in 1957, and then launched the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in a 108-minute orbital flight on April 12, 1961. After two suborbital flights by Alan Shepard Jr. and Gus Grissom, it was up to Glenn to be the first American to orbit the Earth.

“Godspeed, John Glenn,” fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed just before Glenn thundered off a Cape Canaveral launch pad, now a National Historic Landmark, to a place America had never been. At the time of that Feb. 20, 1962, flight, Glenn was 40 years old.

With the all-business phrase, “Roger, the clock is operating, we’re underway,” Glenn radioed to Earth as he started his 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds in space. Years later, he explained he said that because he didn’t feel like he had lifted off and it was the only way he knew he had launched.

During the flight, Glenn uttered a phrase that he would repeat frequently throughout life: “Zero G, and I feel fine.”

“It still seems so vivid to me,” Glenn said in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press on the 50th anniversary of the flight. “I still can sort of pseudo feel some of those same sensations I had back in those days during launch and all.”

Glenn said he was often asked if he was afraid, and he replied, “If you are talking about fear that overcomes what you are supposed to do, no. You’ve trained very hard for those flights.”

Glenn’s ride in the cramped Friendship 7 capsule had its scary moments, however. Sensors showed his heat shield was loose after three orbits, and Mission Control worried he might burn up during re-entry when temperatures reached 3,000 degrees. But the heat shield held.

Even before then, Glenn flew in dangerous skies. He was a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea who flew low, got his plane riddled with bullets, flew with baseball great Ted Williams and earned macho nicknames during 149 combat missions. And as a test pilot he broke aviation records.

The green-eyed, telegenic Marine even won $25,000 on the game show “Name That Tune” with a 10-year-old partner. And that was before April 6, 1959, when his life changed by being selected as one of the Mercury 7 astronauts and instantly started attracting more than his share of the spotlight.

Glenn in later years regaled crowds with stories of NASA’s testing of would-be astronauts, from psychological tests — come with 20 answers to the open-ended question “I am” — to surviving spinning that pushed 16 times normal gravity against his body, popping blood vessels.

But it wasn’t nearly as bad as coming to Cape Canaveral to see the first unmanned rocket test.

“We’re watching this thing go up and up and up … and all at once it blew up right over us, and that was our introduction to the Atlas,” Glenn said in 2011. “We looked at each other and wanted to have a meeting with the engineers in the morning.”

In 1959, Glenn wrote in Life magazine: “Space travel is at the frontier of my profession. It is going to be accomplished, and I want to be in on it. There is also an element of simple duty involved. I am convinced that I have something to give this project.”

That sense of duty was instilled at an early age. Glenn was born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, and grew up in New Concord, Ohio, with the nickname “Bud.” He joined the town band as a trumpeter at age 10 and accompanied his father one Memorial Day in an echoing version of “Taps.” In his 1999 memoir, Glenn wrote “that feeling sums up my childhood. It formed my beliefs and my sense of responsibility. Everything that came after that just came naturally.”

His love of flight was lifelong; John Glenn Sr. spoke of the many summer evenings he arrived home to find his son running around the yard with outstretched arms, pretending he was piloting a plane. Last June, at a ceremony renaming the Columbus airport for him, Glenn recalled imploring his parents to take him to that airport to look at planes whenever they passed through the city: “It was something I was fascinated with.” He piloted his own private plane until age 90.

Glenn’s goal of becoming a commercial pilot was changed by World War II. He left Muskingum College to join the Naval Air Corps and soon after, the Marines.

He became a successful fighter pilot who ran 59 hazardous missions, often as a volunteer or as the requested backup of assigned pilots. A war later, in Korea, he earned the nickname “MiG-Mad Marine” (or “Old Magnet A — ,” which he sometimes paraphrased as “Old Magnet Tail.”)

“I was the one who went in low and got them,” Glenn said, explaining that he often landed with huge holes in the side of his aircraft because he didn’t like to shoot from high altitudes.

Glenn’s public life began when he broke the transcontinental airspeed record, bursting from Los Angeles to New York City in three hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds. With his Crusader averaging 725 mph, the 1957 flight proved the jet could endure stress when pushed to maximum speeds over long distances.

In New York, he got a hero’s welcome — his first tickertape parade. He got another after his flight on Friendship 7.

That mission also introduced Glenn to politics. He addressed a joint session of Congress, and dined at the White House. He became friends with President Kennedy and ally and friend of his brother Robert. The Kennedys urged him to enter politics, and after a difficult few starts he did.

Glenn spent 24 years in the U.S. Senate, representing Ohio longer than any other senator in the state’s history. He announced his impending retirement in 1997, 35 years to the day after he became the first American in orbit, saying, “There is still no cure for the common birthday.”

Glenn returned to space in a long-awaited second flight in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. He got to move around aboard the shuttle for far longer — nine days compared with just under five hours in 1962 — as well as sleep and experiment with bubbles in weightlessness.

In a news conference from space, Glenn said, “To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible.”

NASA tailored a series of geriatric-reaction experiments to create a scientific purpose for Glenn’s mission, but there was more to it than that: a revival of the excitement of the earliest days of the space race, a public relations bonanza and the gift of a lifetime.

Glenn would later write that when he mentioned the idea of going back into space to his wife, Annie, she responded: “Over my dead body.”

Glenn and his crewmates flew 3.6 million miles, compared with 75,000 miles aboard Friendship 7.

Shortly before he ran for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination, a new generation was introduced to astronaut Glenn with the film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book “The Right Stuff.” He was portrayed as the ultimate straight arrow amid a group of hard-partying astronauts.

Glenn said in 2011: “I don’t think any of us cared for the movie ‘The Right Stuff’; I know I didn’t.”

Glenn was unable to capitalize on the publicity, though, and his poorly organized campaign was short-lived. He dropped out of the race with his campaign $2.5 million in the red — a debt that lingered even after he retired from the Senate in 1999.

He later joked that except for going into debt, humiliating his family and gaining 16 pounds, running for president was a good experience.

Glenn generally steered clear of campaigns after that, saying he didn’t want to mix politics with his second space flight. He sat out the Senate race to succeed him — he was hundreds of miles above Earth on Election Day — and largely was quiet in the 2000 presidential race.

He first ran for the Senate in 1964 but left the race when he suffered a concussion after slipping in the bathroom and hitting his head on the tub.

He tried again in 1970 but was defeated in the primary by Howard Metzenbaum, who later lost the general election to Robert Taft Jr. It was the start of a complex relationship with Metzenbaum, whom he later joined in the Senate.

For the next four years, Glenn devoted his attention to business and investments that made him a multimillionaire. He had joined the board of Royal Crown Cola after the aborted 1964 campaign and was president of Royal Crown International from 1967 to 1969. In the early 1970s, he remained with Royal Crown and invested in a chain of Holiday Inns.

In 1974, Glenn ran against Metzenbaum in what turned into a bitter primary and won the election. He eventually made peace with Metzenbaum, who won election to the Senate in 1976.

Glenn set a record in 1980 by winning re-election with a 1.6 million vote margin.

He became an expert on nuclear weaponry and was the Senate’s most dogged advocate of nonproliferation. He was the leading supporter of the B-1 bomber when many in Congress doubted the need for it. As chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he turned a microscope on waste and fraud in the federal bureaucracy.

Glenn said the lowest point of his life was 1990, when he and four other senators came under scrutiny for their connections to Charles Keating, the notorious financier who eventually served prison time for his role in the costly savings and loan failure of the 1980s. The Senate Ethics Committee cleared Glenn of serious wrongdoing but said he “exercised poor judgment.”

The episode was the only brush with scandal in his long public career and didn’t diminish his popularity in Ohio.

Glenn joked that the only astronaut he was envious of was his fellow Ohioan: Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of great experiences in my life and I’m thankful for them,” he said in 2012.

In 1943, Glenn married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Margaret Castor. They met when they were toddlers, and when she had mumps as a teenager, he came to her house, cut a hole in her bedroom window screen, and passed her a radio to keep her company, a friend recounted.

“I don’t remember the first time I told Annie I loved her, or the first time she told me,” Glenn would write in his memoir. “It was just something we both knew.” He bought her a diamond engagement ring in 1942 for $125. It’s never been replaced.

They had two children, Carolyn and John David.

He and his wife, Annie, split their later years between Washington and Columbus. Both served as trustees at their alma mater, Muskingum College. Glenn spent time promoting the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, which also houses an archive of his private papers and photographs.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/12/08/former-astronaut-john-glenn-dies-at-95/feed/0Fri, 09 Dec 2016 03:12:14 +0000john-glenn-1Retired general among Trump’s new Cabinet selectionshttp://khon2.com/2016/12/07/retired-general-among-trumps-new-cabinet-selections/
http://khon2.com/2016/12/07/retired-general-among-trumps-new-cabinet-selections/#respondThu, 08 Dec 2016 03:14:18 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187950]]>NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump embraced new Cabinet officers Wednesday whose backgrounds suggest he’s primed to put tough actions behind his campaign rhetoric on immigration and the environment, even as he seemed to soften his yearlong stance on immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

It’s clearer by the day, underscored by Trump’s at-times contradictory words, that his actual policies as president won’t be settled until after he takes his seat in the Oval Office.

Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier whose policies have helped fossil fuel companies, is to be announced as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Separately, Trump named the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, to head the Small Business Administration — and may have breathed new life into the candidacy of a secretary of state contender.

Trump said he planned to name his choice for the key Cabinet post next week and insisted that former rival Mitt Romney still had a chance. Trump, who has met twice with the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, denied he was stringing Romney along to make him pay for earlier remarks that Trump was unfit to be president.

“No, it’s not about revenge. It’s about what’s good for the country, and I’m able to put this stuff behind us — and I hit him very hard also,” Trump said in a telephone interview on NBC.

Three sources close to the selection process said late Wednesday that Romney’s stock is on the rise again within Trump’s circle after a period in which the celebrity businessman had cooled on the candidacy of the former Massachusetts governor. But Trump has changed his mind repeatedly throughout the process and has expanded the pool of contenders beyond the previously identified final four of Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

Trump’s long presidential campaign was in large part defined by searing rhetoric and his steadfast promises to build an impenetrable wall on the border with Mexico and crack down on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But he struck a softer tone in an interview published Wednesday after he was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump said. “They got brought here at a very young age; they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

He offered no details about a policy that would make that clear.

During the campaign, Trump’s tough comments — including a vow to overturn President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration — have led to fears among immigrant advocates that he will end Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have gained work permits and temporary protection from deportation under the 2012 program, which aides to Trump have said would be revisited.

Others continue to press the immigrants’ case. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel presented Trump a letter Wednesday from 14 big city mayors urging him to keep the program intact.

“They were working hard toward the American dream,” Emmanuel told reporters in lobby of Trump’s skyscraper. “It’s no fault of their own their parents came here. They are something we should hold up and embrace.”

Though some immigrant advocates hope Trump’s words were an olive branch, others were skeptical.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” Frank Sharry of the immigrant-rights group America’s Voice said in a statement. “Unfortunately we expect no pivot and no softening.”

Meanwhile, Trump moved toward making another addition to the collection of generals in his Cabinet, settling on Kelly to head Homeland Security, according to people close to transition. Gen. Kelly, who joined the Marine Corps in 1970, retired this year after a final command that included oversight of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

He has a reputation as a border hawk after a time in the Southern Command, which is based in South Florida and regularly works with Homeland Security on missions to identify and dismantle immigrant smuggling networks.

Trump also picked Pruitt, a longtime critic of the EPA, to head that same agency, according to person close to Pruitt who was not authorized to speak publicly about the choice before it was announced. The move comes just after Trump met with former Vice President Al Gore, who is an environmental activist, and said he had “an open mind” about honoring the Paris climate accords.

That gave hope to some environmentalists, but on Wednesday Trump’s apparent decision was denounced by Democrats.

“Mr. Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican, said Pruitt “has proven that being a good steward of the environment does not mean burdening taxpayers and businesses with red tape.”

The president-elect also announced his selection of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as the new U.S. ambassador to China. Trump and Branstad are expected to appear together in Iowa on Thursday.

Before that, Trump will meet with some of the victims of last week’s car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University. He has denounced immigration policies that allowed the apparent attacker into the country.

“Today our prayers go out to the people of Oakland, California in the aftermath of this weekend’s deadly warehouse fire – one of the worst fires in the state’s history. While we still don’t know the full toll of this disaster, we do know that an American community has been devastated, and many people – including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them – have tragically lost their lives. I want to thank the dedicated first responders who have been working tirelessly for days to contain the situation, recover victims, and treat the wounded. My Administration is in close contact with our state and local partners on the ground to make sure that authorities have everything they need as they continue response operations and investigate the cause of the fire. Oakland is one of the most diverse and creative cities in our country, and as families and residents pull together in the wake of this awful tragedy, they will have the unwavering support of the American people.”

Schumer said in a press release that United Airlines’ proposed fare structure poses one of the most restrictive policies on airline passengers and says the airline should scrap its plan to charge Basic Economy fliers to utilize overhead bins. The New York senator says this fee structure “represents a slippery slope that could negatively alter the policy on free use of the overhead bins for all fliers.”

Automated seat assignments will be given at check-in, and passengers acknowledge at the point of a multi-seat purchase that seating together is not guaranteed.

Carry-on bags are limited to one personal item, unless the customer is a MileagePlus® Premier® member, primary cardmember of a qualifying MileagePlus credit card, or Star AllianceTM Gold member.

There will be no voluntary ticket changes except as stated in the United 24-hour flexible booking policy.

MileagePlus program members will earn redeemable award miles; however they will not earn Premier qualifying credit (miles, segments, or dollars), no lifetime miles, and no contribution to four segment minimum.

Customers will not be eligible for Economy Plus® or premium cabin upgrades.

Customers will board in the last boarding group (currently Group 5) unless a MileagePlus Premier member, primary cardmember of a qualifying MileagePlus credit card, or Star Alliance Gold member.

No combinability with regular Economy fares or partner carriers. Interline travel is not permitted.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/12/05/ny-senator-urges-united-to-stop-basic-economy-overhead-bin-ban/feed/0Tue, 06 Dec 2016 02:52:12 +0000united airlines planeCompany recalls nearly 2M pounds of ready-to-eat chickenhttp://khon2.com/2016/12/05/company-recalls-nearly-2m-pounds-of-ready-to-eat-chicken/
http://khon2.com/2016/12/05/company-recalls-nearly-2m-pounds-of-ready-to-eat-chicken/#respondMon, 05 Dec 2016 22:00:19 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187636]]>National Steak and Poultry based in Oklahoma is recalling almost 2 million pounds of ready-to-eat chicken products because it may be undercooked. This is an expansion of a November 23, 2016 recall for 17,439 pounds of product.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said that the undercooked chicken may result in the survival of bacterial pathogens in the products.

The recallincludes a variety of ready-to-eat chicken products that were produced on various dates from August 20, 2016 through November 30, 2016.

The cases containing the products subject to recall bear establishment number “P-6010T” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to food service locations nationwide and were sold directly to retail consumers.

The USDA notice says that there have been no confirmed reports of adverse health effects or illnesses due to consumption of any of the recalled products. Anyone concerned about a health effect should contact a healthcare provider.

If you have purchased any products on the list, you are urged not to eat them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.

CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won’t grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota.

The decision is a victory for the several thousand camped near the construction site, who’ve said for months that the four-state, $3.8 billion project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.

The pipeline is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. According to a news release, Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said her decision was based on the need to “explore alternate routes” for the pipeline’s crossing.

“Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” Darcy said. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”

The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had said it was unwilling to reroute the project. It and the Morton County Sheriff’s Office, which has done much of the policing of the protests, didn’t have immediate comment.

U.S. Secretary for the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement that the Corps’ “thoughtful approach … ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts” and “underscores that tribal rights reserved in treaties and federal law, as well as Nation-to-Nation consultation with tribal leaders, are essential components of the analysis to be undertaken in the environmental impact statement going forward.”

The federal government has ordered people to leave the main encampment, which is on Army Corps of Engineers’ land, by Monday. But demonstrators say they’re prepared to stay, and authorities say they won’t forcibly remove them.

Earlier Sunday, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said tribal elders had asked the military veterans not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, adding the group is there to help out those who’ve dug in against the project.

About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, camp in southern North Dakota for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming, but it wasn’t clear how many actually arrived.

“We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action,” Wes Clark Jr. said. He then talked about North Dakota authorities’ decision to move away from a key bridge north of the encampment by 4 p.m. Sunday if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, saying the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed.

“If we come forward, they will attack us,” Clark said. Instead, he told the veterans, “If you see someone who needs help, help them out.”

Authorities said they’ll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

“The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a Saturday news release after a conversation between law enforcement and the group’s organizers, “and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate.”

Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said. Any violation will “will result in their arrest,” the statement said.

The bridge blockade is something that Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Gov. Jack Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasn’t been set.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock’s GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday — money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies. Cars waiting to get into the camp Sunday afternoon were backed up for more than a half-mile.

“People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help,” said Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson. The 29-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, flew the first leg of the journey, then rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck. He has finals this week, but told professors, “I’ll see you when I get back.”

Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who’s a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters’ main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water. “This is not just a native issue,” he said, “This is an issue for everyone.”

Art Woodson and two other veterans drove 17 hours straight from Flint, Michigan, a city whose lead-tainted water crisis parallels with the tribe’s fight over water, he said.

“We know in Flint that water is in dire need,” the 49-year-old disabled Gulf War Army veteran said. “In North Dakota, they’re trying to force pipes on people. We’re trying to get pipes in Flint for safe water.”

On Monday, some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony in which they’ll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also called the veterans’ presence “about right and wrong and peace and love.”

Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who is part of the veterans group who joined protesters at Standing Rock, released the following statement after the decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

This is a historic moment for the Standing Rock Sioux and the water protectors who have gathered here from across the country. This announcement in effect requires the Dakota Access Pipeline to be rerouted—an essential step in protecting water for millions of people in this region as well as respecting this sacred land.

In my meeting yesterday with Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault, he emphasized the importance of caring for our planet not as a resource, but as our relative. Water is life; we cannot survive without it. Whether it’s the threat to essential water sources in this region, lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, the potential threat posed to our water by the Red Hill fuel storage facility on Oʻahu, or the many other threats to our water across our nation, we must act now to protect our precious water for current and future generations to come. I join Chairman Archambault, my fellow veterans, the thousands of water protectors here at Standing Rock, and millions of people around the world in expressing tremendous gratitude for this announcement. While we are victorious in this effort, our work to protect our water and take care of our land is far from over. We must continue to raise our voices as one in this worthy fight.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The death toll from a fire that tore through a warehouse hosting a late-night dance party climbed to 33 on Sunday as firefighters painstakingly combed through rubble for others believed to still be missing.

Less than half of the charred remains of the partly collapsed structure had been searched, and crews clearing debris were expected to find more bodies as they advanced, Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly said.

Officials said they have identified seven people who were killed.

Among them is Donna Kellogg, according to her father, Keith Slocum. He declined additional comment.

Kelly said those killed range in age from teenagers to 30-plus years old.

Anxious family members who feared the worst gathered at the sheriff’s office to await word on their loved ones. They were told they may have to provide DNA samples to help identify remains.

A firefighter walks on the roof of a smoldering building after a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 in Oakland, Calif. Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said many people were unaccounted for as of Saturday morning and authorities were working to verify who was in the cluttered warehouse when the fire broke out around 11:30 p.m. Friday. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson)

The building known as the “Ghost Ship” had been carved into artist studios and was an illegal home for a rotating cast of a dozen or more people, according to former denizens who said it was a cluttered death trap with few exits, piles of wood and a mess of snaking electric cords.

“If you were going there for a party, you wouldn’t be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out,” said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse.

As many as 100 people were there for a party Friday night when the fire broke out just before midnight. Fire officials were still investigating the cause of the blaze, but they said clutter fueled the flames, there were no sprinklers inside and few exits to escape.

Boudreaux identified the operators of the Satya Yuga collective as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison. She had a falling out with Almena when she convinced Allison’s parents and sister about a year ago that the warehouse was a dangerous place for the couple’s three children to live.

The couple rented out five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces. A rickety makeshift staircase led to a second floor where concerts were held. Former residents said there frequently was no electricity or running water.

Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints from neighbors who said trash was piling up and people were illegally living in the building zoned as a warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldn’t get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department.

The city had not confirmed people lived there, but a former resident said she had been lured in part by reasonable rents in a region beset with a housing shortage and exorbitant leases driven by the tech boom.

Shelley Mack said she wasn’t told the residence was illegal until after she moved in a couple years ago and stayed for four to five months, paying about $700 a month. She said she was instructed to tell visitors it was a 24-hour workspace for artists and when outsiders or inspectors planned to visit, residents would scurry to hide clothes and bedding.

“It’s like a horror house. Just horrors in there,” she said.

To a first-time visitor, though, the labyrinth of uniquely designed spaces was “stunning,” said Alastair Boone, a University of California, Berkeley student who arrived at the party with five friends around 11 p.m.

Photographs from before the fire showed that the Bohemian community of musicians, painters, woodworkers, dancers and other artists had decorated the scene with Tibetan prayer flags, Christmas lights and scores of wooden statues of Buddha, the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, elephants and dragons that sat atop pianos and turntables. Tapestries hung from the walls, mannequin legs and arms stuck out from the ceiling and a small wooden spot of floor was used for art performances.

“It was obvious to me everyone who lives there cared about each other and were invested in a space they made a home,” Boone said.

Almena did not immediately respond to emails or phone numbers associated with him. Authorities declined to talk about the manager, saying they were focused on recovering the bodies and consoling families.

A unidentified man covers his face outside of a warehouse that was destroyed by a fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said many people were unaccounted for as of Saturday morning and authorities were working to verify who was in the cluttered warehouse when the fire broke out around 11:30 p.m. Friday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

A man identified as Derick Ion posted a Facebook message early Saturday, saying, “Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound.” He drew rebukes online from others who said he was warned the building was unsafe.

Almena, 46, has lived in California since at least 1990, mostly in Los Angeles, where public records show he was evicted from a North Hollywood apartment in Los Angeles in 1993.

Allison, 40, spent much of her life residing in Northern California, although she had also lived in Southern California, where she filed for a fictitious business name, Sacred Image, at a Los Angeles address.

Online records listed the building’s owner as Nar Siu Chor. The Associated Press could not locate a telephone number for her Saturday. Efforts to reach her at other Oakland addresses associated with her were not successful.

Boone said she had just received a tour of the property and stepped outside when someone yelled, “Fire!”

“In a couple of minutes there were flames coming out of the windows and black smoke was just billowing out of the house,” she said.

Some of the people who got out were crying and others stood silently in shock as firefighters arrived to put the flames out.

“The people who lived there were clustered together, and they were just so sad,” Boone said. “They were losing their loved ones, and there was nothing they could do.”

Monica Kat was outside the warehouse Saturday and said she feared four of her friends are dead. “They’re still not accounted for, and I can only think the worst at this point,” she said.

Flowers and candles are placed at the site of a warehouse fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. Firefighters struggled to get to bodies in the rubble Saturday, after a deadly fire tore through a converted Oakland warehouse during a late-night electronic music party Friday, making the charred structure unsafe for emergency crews to enter. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

—

Melley reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Olga Rodriguez, Tim Reiterman and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco, and Jonathan J. Cooper, Terry Chea and Janie Har in Oakland contributed to this report.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/12/04/death-toll-in-oakland-warehouse-fire-rises-to-24-with-more-expected/feed/0Mon, 05 Dec 2016 01:21:25 +0000oakland-warehouse-fire-aftermath-5A firefighter walks on the roof of a smoldering building after a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 in Oakland, Calif. Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said many people were unaccounted for as of Saturday morning and authorities were working to verify who was in the cluttered warehouse when the fire broke out around 11:30 p.m. Friday. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson)A unidentified man covers his face outside of a warehouse that was destroyed by a fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said many people were unaccounted for as of Saturday morning and authorities were working to verify who was in the cluttered warehouse when the fire broke out around 11:30 p.m. Friday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)Flowers and candles are placed at the site of a warehouse fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. Firefighters struggled to get to bodies in the rubble Saturday, after a deadly fire tore through a converted Oakland warehouse during a late-night electronic music party Friday, making the charred structure unsafe for emergency crews to enter. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)Tulsi Gabbard to join military veterans to support Dakota Access Pipeline protestershttp://khon2.com/2016/12/03/tulsi-gabbard-to-join-military-veterans-to-support-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters/
http://khon2.com/2016/12/03/tulsi-gabbard-to-join-military-veterans-to-support-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters/#respondSun, 04 Dec 2016 00:04:27 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187429]]>

Tulsi Gabbard’s office reported Tuesday that the Hawaii congresswoman will be joining thousands of military veterans from across the country this weekend to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota who are protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through their tribal lands.

The Associated Press reports that the approximately 2,000 veterans will gather Sunday in Fort Yates at the Standing Rock Reservation. Veterans Stand for Standing Rock says they’ll be bused to the protesters’ main camp on Monday and spend most of Tuesday and Wednesday on the front lines.

The $3.8 billion pipeline is designed to carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Opponents, including the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, say it will harm drinking water and cultural sites. The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project.

In a statement Tuesday, Rep. Gabbard said “If my participation in this protest helps send one message, it is this: We must protect our fragile water resources for current and future generations.”

In this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 photo, the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access pipeline is seen near Cannon Ball, N.D. North Dakota leaders have approved an emergency request to borrow an additional $7 million to cover the cost of law enforcement related to the ongoing protest of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline. The state’s Emergency Commission voted Wednesday, Nov. 30, to borrow the funds from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

This comes at a time when a harsh winter is barreling down on the large number of protesters already there.

So far, they have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures that have swirled around their large encampment on the North Dakota grasslands.

But if they defy next week’s government deadline to abandon the camp, demonstrators know the real deep freeze lies ahead, when the full weight of the Great Plains winter descends on their community of nylon tents and teepees. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival.

For several months, the government permitted the gathering, allowing its population to swell. The Seven Council Fires camp began growing in August as it took in the overflow crowd from smaller protest sites nearby. It now covers a half square mile, with living quarters that include old school buses, fancy motorhomes and domelike yurts. Hale bales are piled around some teepees to keep out the wind. There’s even a crude corral for horses.

The number of inhabitants has ranged from several hundred to several thousand. It has been called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century.

Increasingly, more permanent wooden structures are being erected, even though the Army Corps of Engineers considers them illegal on government property. The Standing Rock Sioux insist the land still belongs to their tribe under a nearly 150-year-old treaty.

In this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 photo, Beatrice Menase Kwe Jackson of the Ojibwe Native American tribe leads a song during a traditional water ceremony along the Cannonball river at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Camp morale is high, he added, despite the onset of winter.

“Everybody I’ve talked to, you hear laughter and people just having a good time, enjoying the camaraderie and the support from each other,” said Nate Bison, a member of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux. “And the love. People are taking the shirts off their own backs for other people. No one is left out that I’ve seen.”

On Thursday, the camp near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers was shrouded in snow, much of it compacted by foot and vehicle traffic. Temperatures hovered in the 20s. Next week’s forecast calls for single digits and subzero wind chills.

Camp dwellers are getting ready for the hardships of a long stay. Mountains of donated food and water are being stockpiled, as is firewood, much of which has come from outside of North Dakota, the least-forested state in the nation. A collection of Army surplus tents with heating stoves serve as kitchen, dining hall, medical clinic and a camp-run school. Many of the smaller tents have become tattered by the wind.

Thane Maxwell, a 32-year-old Minneapolis native who has been living at the camp since July, said North Dakota’s bitter cold will not deter protesters committed to fighting the pipeline, or “black snake” as they call it.

Tribes from the Great Plains states are adept at surviving brutal winters, he said. Others from warmer climes are being taught how to endure the frostbite-inducing temperatures that are sure to come.

“A lot of these people have been living in this climate for hundreds of years,” said Maxwell, a member of Minnesota-based Honor the Earth Foundation. “It’s a skill set that can be learned. The danger is escalating from law enforcement, not the weather.”

He put out a call on social media for more donations, seeking four-wheel drive trucks and foul-weather clothing. He also asked for gas masks and protective baseball and hockey gear to shield protesters from any future skirmishes with police.

More than 525 people from across the country have been arrested since August. In a recent clash between police and protesters near the path of the pipeline, officers used tear gas, rubber bullets and large water hoses in sub-freezing temperatures. Organizers said at least 17 protesters were taken to the hospital, some for hypothermia and one for an arm injury. One officer was hurt.

North Dakota has often conjured images of a wind-swept, treeless wasteland. The perception was so great that it led to a short-lived proposal to change the state’s name by dropping “North” and leaving just “Dakota,” to dispel the image of inhospitable winter weather.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, who is heading the law enforcement effort around the pipeline, said he hopes the harsh conditions force people to leave the encampment, something the state and federal governments have so far been unable to do.

In addition to the federal order, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple issued a “mandatory evacuation” for the camp “to safeguard against harsh winter conditions.” But he said Wednesday that the state has no intention of blocking food and supplies from coming into the camp.

Doing so would be a “huge mistake from a humanitarian viewpoint,” the Republican said.

The federal deadline probably will not have any immediate effect on the camp either. Soon after it was set, the Army Corps of Engineers explained that the agency had no plans to forcibly remove anyone, although violators could be charged with trespassing.

A person prays along the Cannonball River during a Native American water ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016, at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Back at the camp, about 75 people lined up Thursday to draw propane for heating and cooking from a fuel truck. The driver, Rodney Grant, said it was his seventh trip in a week. The propane was free to campers. Grant said he did not know who was paying for it.

Dani Jo McKing, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, was among those in line. She and her husband have been sharing cold-weather tips with people who are not from North Dakota. She said people with out-of-state license plates, including California and Nevada, have been seen driving away from the camp. The cruel winter is bound to induce others to head home, she said.

The cold weather has never bothered her.

“This is where I live. I’ll stay until the end. This is God’s country,” she said.

Summer Moore arrived last week from Paintsville, Kentucky, and quickly learned the power of the whipping North Dakota wind. When a snowstorm rolled in Monday, it ripped her tent to shreds.

“It wasn’t that cold, but the wind was so bad it knocked me down three times,” Moore said.

She hitched a ride to the casino on the Standing Rock reservation and rode out the storm in a hotel room.

A carpenter named Joel Maurer came from California last month. He’s been building small shed-like bunkhouses that will sleep seven people each with room for a stove.

“I know things are going to get real here real quick,” he said.

—

Associated Press photographer David Goldman contributed to this story.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/12/03/tulsi-gabbard-to-join-military-veterans-to-support-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters/feed/0Sun, 04 Dec 2016 22:39:12 +0000tulsi gabbard national guard promotionIn this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 photo, the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access pipeline is seen near Cannon Ball, N.D. North Dakota leaders have approved an emergency request to borrow an additional $7 million to cover the cost of law enforcement related to the ongoing protest of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline. The state’s Emergency Commission voted Wednesday, Nov. 30, to borrow the funds from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. (AP Photo/David Goldman)In this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 photo, Beatrice Menase Kwe Jackson of the Ojibwe Native American tribe leads a song during a traditional water ceremony along the Cannonball river at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project. (AP Photo/David Goldman)A person prays along the Cannonball River during a Native American water ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016, at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. (AP Photo/David Goldman)USC professor killed in campus stabbing, student arrestedhttp://khon2.com/2016/12/03/usc-professor-killed-in-campus-stabbing-student-arrested/
http://khon2.com/2016/12/03/usc-professor-killed-in-campus-stabbing-student-arrested/#respondSat, 03 Dec 2016 20:51:54 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187414]]>LOS ANGELES (AP) — A graduate student arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death the professor who oversaw his work at the University of Southern California was being held on $1 million bail Saturday as their shocked colleagues began processing the news.

David Jonathan Brown, a 28-year-old brain and cognitive science student, was arrested in the Friday afternoon attack in the heart of the Los Angeles campus. His mentor, Bosco Tjan, was killed inside the Seeley G. Mudd building, where he runs an intensive lab that studies vision loss.

Brown, one of just five students who worked in the lab, was arrested without incident almost immediately afterward, police said, adding that the killing was targeted. In a biography page about the lab and the students involved in it, Brown’s is the only one without a detailed description or photograph.

Nathaniel Kwok, who recently finished working 18 months in the lab, said graduate students like Brown work in the lab 40 to 60 hours a week and develop their own projects that are required in order to graduate.

Brown had been working in the lab since around 2013, but he took a leave of absence for personal reasons sometime last year that lasted roughly a semester, Kwok said. He added that he didn’t know why Brown needed the time off or how close to graduation he was.

“He seemed normal for the most part. He was a little on the reserved side, but he was nice. He was friendly,” Kwok said from New York, where he’s now in medical school. “There was nothing that ever would have given me some kind of indicator that he would be harboring any kind of sentiment like this.”

Brown said in his biography Tjan treated him as a son and that he always loved the professor’s frankness, sarcastic wit and sharp mind.

Kilho Shin, a brain and cognitive science graduate student who works in Tjan’s lab, said Brown was a quiet student and seemed satisfied with Tjan’s oversight.

“I don’t know what exactly happened between them. But as far as I know, Bosco likes David’s work and David also seemed to be satisfied with his supervising,” Shin said. “Their conversation on research was healthy and constructive.”

Shin said he was shocked by Tjan’s killing, adding that the professor was humorous, kind and warm, and a genius in his area of study.

“It is a big loss not only to me but also in this field and society. He has served his lab members as his family members, not just graduate students, including David Brown,” he said.

Chris Purington, project manager at Tjan’s lab, said Friday that he never heard of anyone having a problem with Tjan, a married father of one son listed in public records as 50 years old.

“He was somebody who really cared about people. I know he cared about me,” Purington said through tears. “He mentored people, and he looked out for them. He spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a mentor and guide people.”

Purington, who traveled with Tjan for various science conferences, said everyone knew and loved the professor.

“People talk about scientists as very cold or robotic. Bosco is a guy that he could talk to anybody about anything,” he said. “He couldn’t move through a room without being sidetracked in all these conversations.

“He just had this energy about him. Kinetic might be the word,” he said. “He had a huge impact on my life.”

Purington, who also oversaw Brown at the lab, said Saturday that he was not ready to speak about the student.

David Clewett said he was a student in Tjan’s brain-imaging course and met with him about how to analyze his data.

“He was a brilliant scientist and an exceptional person who was always kind, generous with his time, and genuinely cared about his students and colleagues,” Clewett said. “This is such a tragic and shocking loss.”

In a letter addressed to the USC community, university President C. L. Max Nikias called Tjan’s killing a tragedy.

“As the Trojan family mourns Professor Tjan’s untimely passing, we will keep his family in our thoughts,” Nikias said.

Tjan joined USC in 2001, taught in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and served as co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, Nikias said.

The stabbing comes six months after a well-loved professor was fatally shot on the nearby UCLA campus. Authorities believe former student Mainak Sarkar killed his estranged wife in a Minneapolis suburb before driving across the country to Los Angeles and fatally shooting engineering professor William Klug before killing himself on June 1. Klug had helped Sarkar earn his engineering Ph.D. in 2013.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters struggled to get to bodies in the rubble Saturday after a fire tore through a converted Oakland warehouse during a late-night electronic music party, killing at least 9 people and making the charred structure unsafe for emergency crews to enter. Officials said they feared the death toll could rise as high as 40.

Officials described the scene inside the warehouse, which had been illegally converted into artist studios, as a death trap that made it impossible for many partygoers to escape the Friday night fire. And a day later, the maze of debris and devastation was complicating efforts to extract the bodies.

“It was just a labyrinth of little areas. We knew people were in there, and we were trying to get them out. But it was just a labyrinth,” Oakland deputy fire chief Mark Hoffmann told reporters Saturday afternoon.

He said that firefighters had to stop their search and rescue operation Saturday afternoon for safety reasons and shore up the structure, but they expected to resume later in the day. The building’s roof had collapsed into the second floor, which in places fell to the bottom floor.

Oakland officials said they had opened an investigation just last month into the warehouse after numerous complaints filed by neighbors who said trash was piling up outside the property and people were illegally living in the building, which was zoned as a warehouse.

Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department, said the city opened an investigation Nov. 13 and an investigator went to the premises on Nov. 17 but could not get inside the building. The city has not confirmed people were living inside.

One survivor, however, said that 18 artists lived inside the warehouse.

Bob Mule said he was one of the artists living in the collective space. He told KGO-TV that he and another person smelled smoke and spotted the fire in a back corner and started yelling.

“The fire went up really, really, really quickly,” he said.

Mule said he tried to help someone who had an injured ankle but couldn’t. “There was a lot of stuff in the way, the flames were too much,” Mule said, trailing off. “I hope, I hope he’s OK.”

The warehouse was known as the “Oakland Ghost Ship.” Its website showed pictures of a bohemian, loft-like interior made of wood and cluttered with rugs, old sofas and a garage-sale like collection of pianos, paintings, turntables, statues and other items.

The website included advertisements for various electronic music parties. Friday night’s event featured musician Golden Donna’s 100% Silk West Coast tour. A message on the group’s website said “Joel is safe but like many people he is heartbroken.”

It’s unclear what sparked the fire. But officials said the clutter served as a tinderbox and there were no sprinklers inside.

“Something as simple as a cigarette could have started this,” Kelly said, adding that people either escaped from the building or died inside, where the only way down from the second story was via a stairwell constructed entirely of wooden pallets. “It appears that either you got out or you got trapped inside.”

More than 15 hours after the fire started, rescue crews had only recovered four bodies from the building and dozens of people were still unaccounted for, Kelly said. He said the rescue operation was expected to take a minimum of two days. None of the nine dead have been identified.

About 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the pty when the fire started around 11:30 p.m. Friday, officials said.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said at least 25 people were unaccounted for. The victims were believed to be people in their 20s, Kelly said. He said as many as 40 may have perished and that the coroner is preparing for a “mass casualty event” that could include victims from other countries.

People place flowers near the scene of a warehouse fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. A deadly fire broke out during a rave at the converted warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson)

Panicked friends and family posted messages on the group’s Facebook page trying to find out if their loved ones were among the dead. Those searching for the missing were sent to a local sheriff’s office, where Dan Vega was anxiously awaiting news. He had been unable to find his younger brother or his brother’s girlfriend.

Vega said he was not sure if the two were at the party Friday night but that his brother likes to go to raves and he had not been able to reach him Saturday. His girlfriend’s car was still parked at a transit station in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.

Fighting tears, Dan Vega said he’s frustrated authorities hadn’t been able to tell him anything about his 22-year-old brother.

“I just want to go over there. I have my work boots on. I’m ready to go,” Dan Vega said. “Just give me some gloves. I’ll help out any way, shape or form, I don’t care. This is infuriating. I don’t know where my brother’s at. I just want to find him.”

Oakland police urged those concerned about missing people to call the Alameda County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau at 510-382-3000.

—

Associated Press writers Olga R. Rodriguez and Juliet Williams in San Francisco, Jonathan J. Cooper in Oakland, Evan Berland in New York and Adam Kealoha Causey in Phoenix contributed to this report.

(CNN) — The Force appears to be with the Fort Worth, Texas, police department.

Officials are looking to recruit their next police academy class with a little help from “Star Wars.”

In this case, a stormtrooper tries to prove he’s police material in this recruitment video.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/12/03/texas-police-recruitment-video-uses-humorous-star-wars-theme/feed/0Sat, 03 Dec 2016 19:15:22 +0000star-wars-police-recruitment-videoPresident-elect Trump: Indiana plant deal first of many victories to comehttp://khon2.com/2016/12/01/president-elect-trump-indiana-plant-deal-first-of-many-victories-to-come/
http://khon2.com/2016/12/01/president-elect-trump-indiana-plant-deal-first-of-many-victories-to-come/#respondFri, 02 Dec 2016 01:45:39 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187143]]>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Donald Trump saluted workers, owners and himself Thursday at a Carrier plant in Indiana, declaring that a deal to keep a local plant open instead of moving operations to Mexico was only the first of many business victories to come in the U.S. with him as president.

Trump’s stop at the heating and air conditioning giant’s plant, his first major public appearance since the election more than two weeks ago, marked the opening of a victory tour to states that helped him win. He was appearing at a big rally in Cincinnati Thursday night.

His speaking style, while calmer than on the campaign trail, was similar to the seemingly stream-of-conscious efforts of the past year. While focusing on the hundreds of jobs he said he had saved from moving to Mexico, he also found time to talk about his Hoosier state primary performance, former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight and the wall he has promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Some questions remain about the extent of the victory at Carrier, which announced this week that it will keep an Indianapolis plant open. In February, the heating and air conditioning company said that it would shut the plant and send jobs to Mexico, and video of angry workers being informed about the decision soon went viral.

“We’re going to build the wall,” Trump said, repeating his vow to construct an impenetrable southern border. “Trust me: We’re going to build that wall.” In other recent remarks, he has suggested that he might actually go for a fence along some portions of the border.

“The Rust Belt is so incredible but we’re losing companies, it’s unbelievable. Just one after the other,” Trump said to workers at the Indianapolis plant. “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. It’s not going to happen. It’s simply not going to happen.”

During the campaign, he had often pointed to the Indiana plant’s moving plans and a major result of poor Obama administration policies, and he pledged to revive U.S. manufacturing. Officials said this week that Carrier had agreed to keep some 800 union jobs at the plant but Trump suggested Thursday that it could exceed 1,100.

A call to a Carrier spokesman to clarify was not immediately returned. Earlier Thursday, Seth Martin, a spokesman for Carrier, said that Indiana offered the air conditioning and furnace manufacturer $7 million in tax incentives after negotiations with Trump’s team to keep some jobs in the state. Chuck Jones, the head of the USW Local 1999 union that represents the workers, said the additional jobs in Trump’s count were previously set to be saved.

The company’s decision is something of a reversal, since earlier offers from the state had failed to sway Carrier.

Trump said he personally called Greg Hayes, the CEO of United Technologies, Carrier’s parent, to seal the deal, jokingly asking Hayes, “If I lost would you have picked up the phone?”

The president-elect threatened during the campaign to impose sharp tariffs on any company that shifted its factories to Mexico. And his advisers have promoted lower corporate tax rates as a means of keeping jobs in the U.S.

Trump repeated both ideas on Thursday.

He toured the factory with his running mate Mike Pence — who, as the outgoing governor of Indiana, was well-situated to aid negotiations — and shook hands with several workers whose jobs would be preserved. Trump pointed to one and yelled at reporters “He’s going to have a good Christmas.”

Though hundreds may keep their jobs, others apparently will not, since roughly 1,400 workers were slated to be laid off — and many workers have not yet been told their fate. While Trump received some cheers during his appearance, the response was not overwhelming, perhaps a reflection of that uncertainty.

Trump’s deal with Carrier may be a public relations success for the incoming president but also suggests that he has unveiled a new presidential economic approach: actively choosing individual corporate winners and losers — or at least winners. To critics who see other Indiana factories on the verge of closing, deals like the one at Carrier are unlikely to stem the job losses caused by automation and cheap foreign competition, and the prospect that the White House might directly intervene is also a concern to some economists.

The other victory Trump is celebrating is far more clear-cut: his own on Election Day.

Trump, who has long spoken of feeding off the energy of his raucous crowds, first floated the idea of a victory tour just days after winning the election but has instead prioritized filling some Cabinet positions.

The rally in Cincinnati, which Pence also will attend, will take place in the same downtown sports arena where Trump appeared in late October and drew about 15,000 people in what was one of his loudest — and most hostile to the media — crowds of the campaign. Trump, who convincingly won Ohio, is also expected to hold rallies in battleground states including Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan in the coming weeks, though details have yet to be announced.

Hackers have gained access to more than 1.3 million Google accounts — emails, photos, documents and more — by infecting Android phones through illegitimate apps.

That discovery comes from computer researchers at Check Point, a cybersecurity firm. On Wednesday, Google confirmed to CNNMoney the nature and extent of the problem.

The hackers have managed to steal digital “tokens” that give them access to Google services, like a person’s email and photo collection. But according to Google, hackers have not yet tapped that information and stolen it.

The massive hack appears to be a criminal enrichment scheme.

Infected Android smartphones begin to install other, legitimate Android apps — then rate them highly. This fraudulently inflates their reputation, according to Check Point researchers.

Google has already removed the legitimate apps from its official store that have benefited from this ratings conspiracy, according to a blog post by Adrian Ludwig, the company’s director of Android security.

The malware also installs malicious advertising software that tracks users, a potential boon for data-hungry marketers.

Google says it has blocked 150,000 versions of this kind of nasty cyberattack.

But the problem persists. Another 13,000 devices are getting infected and breached daily, according to Check Point researchers who have been tracking this type of cyberattack since last year. They’ve nicknamed the hacking campaign “Gooligan.”

Check Point has set up a website — Gooligan.CheckPoint.com — for people to check if their devices have been hacked. (It requires you to enter your Google email address, gives you a response, and offers the company’s “ZoneAlarm” product.)

Alternatively, Android users could check to see if they have downloaded illegitimate versions of any of the apps listed at the bottom of this article.

Experts say that if your device has been breached, you need to “re-flash” your Android device. If you’re unsure how to accomplish this, take the device to a certified technician. After you’ve completed that step, you need to change the password for the Google account that is used by the device.

Smartphone owners are advised to only download certified computer programs from official repositories. Google has its Google Play store. Apple has its App Store.

But some people insist on visiting unofficial app stores — typically on shady websites — because they offer free, counterfeit versions of popular apps.

“Not surprisingly, a malware, spread in unofficial markets, can create real damage,” said Zuk Avraham, the founder of another cybersecurity firm, Zimperium.

On Tuesday, Google stressed that users should avoid downloading outside of Google Play.

According to Check Point, here’s the list of potentially infected apps:

Perfect Cleaner

Demo

WiFi Enhancer

Snake

gla.pev.zvh

Html5 Games

Demm

memory booster

แข่งรถสุดโหด

StopWatch

Clear

ballSmove_004

Flashlight Free

memory booste

Touch Beauty

Demoad

Small Blue Point

Battery Monitor

清理大师

UC Mini

Shadow Crush

Sex Photo

小白点

tub.ajy.ics

Hip Good

Memory Booster

phone booster

SettingService

Wifi Master

Fruit Slots

System Booster

Dircet Browser

FUNNY DROPS

Puzzle Bubble-Pet Paradise

GPS

Light Browser

Clean Master

YouTube Downloader

KXService

Best Wallpapers

Smart Touch

Light Advanced

SmartFolder

youtubeplayer

Beautiful Alarm

PronClub

Detecting instrument

Calculator

GPS Speed

Fast Cleaner

Blue Point

CakeSweety

Pedometer

Compass Lite

Fingerprint unlock

PornClub

com.browser.provider

Assistive Touch

Sex Cademy

OneKeyLock

Wifi Speed Pro

Minibooster

com.so.itouch

com.fabullacop.loudcallernameringtone

Kiss Browser

Weather

Chrono Marker

Slots Mania

Multifunction Flashlight

So Hot

Google

HotH5Games

Swamm Browser

Billiards

TcashDemo

Sexy hot wallpaper

Wifi Accelerate

Simple Calculator

Daily Racing

Talking Tom 3

com.example.ddeo

Test

Hot Photo

QPlay

Virtual

Music Cloud

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/11/30/nearly-one-million-android-phones-infected-by-hackers/feed/0Thu, 01 Dec 2016 03:39:14 +0000FILE - This June 27, 2012 file photo shows an Android display at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Google is expected to use its annual software developers’ conference to showcase the latest mobile devices running on its Android software, while also unveiling other features in its evolving product line-up. The gathering is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, May 15, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)At least 7 dead, dozens hurt in raging Tennessee wildfireshttp://khon2.com/2016/11/30/at-least-7-dead-dozens-hurt-in-raging-tennessee-wildfires/
http://khon2.com/2016/11/30/at-least-7-dead-dozens-hurt-in-raging-tennessee-wildfires/#respondThu, 01 Dec 2016 03:03:29 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=187018]]>

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WATE) – Wildfires continue to roar across the southeast, leaving a trail of devastation and worry on the minds of those who are still searching for missing loved ones.

Officials in Sevier County say the death toll has now reached seven in the fires in Gatlinburg and the county. The remains have not yet been positively identified nor families notified. They were found in the Campbell Lead Road area and were all adults. A total of 53 people are now reported injured.

Mayor Larry Waters said Wednesday three more people have been rescued – two in an elevator at the Westgate resort and one from a private home on Ski Mountain – and the number of buildings destroyed or damaged just in the county had risen to at least 400. Another 300 or so have been damaged or destroyed in Gatlinburg.

A 6 p.m to 6 a.m. curfew continues in Gatlinburg Wednesday night.

State officials say the fire is 10 percent contained and has burned 15,653 acres. The fire is currently burning in brush, hardwood slash and leaf litter. It is believed to have been human caused.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has established a hotline to coordinate reports of missing persons in the areas affected by the recent wildfires in East Tennessee. Those wishing to report missing individuals believed to be in the affected areas of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Wears Valley may contact 1-800-TBI-FIND.

Gov. Bill Haslam said this is the largest fire in 100 years in Tennessee.

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed Wednesday a bill to recognize Filipino soldiers who fought under U.S. command during World War II.

The Filipino Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act (S.1555) was sponsored by Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the bill in July, which means it now heads to the president’s desk.

“For months, we have said that time is running out to recognize Filipino World War II veterans for their brave service,” said Hirono. “Today’s House passage is the culmination of decades of work by these veterans and their families to recognize their key role in the Allied victory, and their decades-long fight for benefits.”

“Today, the United States Congress took an historic step forward in honoring the more than 200,000 Filipino and Filipino-American soldiers that served our country during World War II,” said Representative Gabbard. “Our Filipino WWII veterans have waited decades for this recognition alongside units like the Tuskegee Airmen and Hawaii’s own 442nd/100th Infantry Battalion with the Congressional Gold Medal—our nation’s highest civilian honor. With just 18,000 of these Filipino World War II veterans still alive today, we cannot afford to wait any longer. I urge the President to sign this bill into law before the year’s end, and honor our veterans with this long-overdue recognition.”

The Filipino Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act would award the medal collectively to the more than 260,000 Filipino and Filipino-American soldiers who responded to President Roosevelt’s call-to-duty and fought under the American flag during World War II.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor conferred by the U.S. Congress.

The $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline to carry North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois is nearly complete.

Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners says the pipeline will be safe, but the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says the project threatens the drinking water on its nearby reservation as well as some American Indian cultural sites.

People from around the country have taken up the tribe’s cause, with thousands congregating at the protest camp.

Police have made nearly 575 arrests since August during clashes at the protesters’ main camp along the pipeline route in southern North Dakota and at protests in and around the state capital, Bismarck, about 50 miles to the north.

Gabbard released the following statement:

“I’m participating in the Dakota Access Pipeline protest because of the threat this project poses to water resources in four states serving millions of people. Whether it’s the threat to essential water sources in this region, the lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, or the threat posed to a major Hawaii aquifer by the Red Hill fuel leak, each example underscores the vital importance of protecting our water resources.

“Protecting our water is not a partisan political issue—it is an issue important to all people and all living beings everywhere. Water is life. Obviously, we cannot survive without water, and once we allow an aquifer to be polluted, there’s very little that can be done about it. It is essential that we prevent water resources from being polluted in the first place.

“Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the Dakota Pipeline, has a history of serious pipeline explosions, which have caused injury, death, and significant property damage in the past decade. The future operator of the planned pipeline, Sunoco Logistics, has also had over 200 environmentally damaging oil spills in the last 6 years, more than any of its competitors.

“If my participation in this protest helps send one message, it is this: We must protect our fragile water resources for current and future generations.

“I hope President Obama will do the right thing and stop this pipeline project before water resources for millions are forever ruined.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Somali-born student who carried out the car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University stewed over the treatment of Muslims while apparently staying under the radar of federal law enforcement, underscoring the difficulty authorities face in identifying and stopping lone wolves bent on violence.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan was not known to FBI counterterrorism authorities before Monday’s rampage, which ended with Artan shot to death by police and 11 people injured, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

That’s in contrast to several other recent attacks, including those in New York City; Orlando, Florida; and Garland, Texas, in which those blamed for the bloodshed had previously come to the attention of federal agents.

Law enforcement officials have not identified a motive for the Ohio State violence but have suggested terrorism as a possibility. FBI agents continued to search Artan’s apartment for clues.

A car inside a police line sits on the sidewalk as authorities respond to an attack on campus at Ohio State University, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The mode of attack – plowing a car into civilians, then slashing victims with a butcher knife – was in keeping with the recommended tactics of jihadist propaganda. And Facebook posts that were apparently written shortly before the attack and came to light afterward show Artan nursed grievances against the U.S.

He railed against U.S. intervention in Muslim lands and warned, “If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace” with the Islamic State group.

“America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that,” he wrote, using the Arabic term for the world’s Muslim community. He also warned that other Muslims are in sleeper cells, “waiting for a signal. I am warning you Oh America!”

The posts were recounted by a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The posts were taken down after the attack.

On Tuesday, a self-described Islamic State news agency called Artan “a soldier of the Islamic State” who “carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of international coalition countries.” The Islamic State group has previously described other attackers around the world as its “soldiers” without specifically claiming to have organized the acts of violence.

This August 2016 image provided by TheLantern.com shows Abdul Razak Ali Artan in Columbus, Ohio. Authorities identified Abdul Razak Ali Artan as the Somali-born Ohio State University student who plowed his car into a group of pedestrians on campus and then got out and began stabbing people with a knife Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, before he was shot to death by an officer. (Kevin Stankiewicz/TheLantern.com via AP)

Artan’s social media rants seemed at odds with the portrait of the young man painted by neighbors and acquaintances.

Jack Ouham, owner of a market near the home on the outskirts of Columbus where Artan lived with his parents and siblings, saw the Ohio State student almost every day when he stopped in for snacks but never alcohol or cigarettes.

He was never angry, Ouham said. “Very nice guy. It’s just shocking to me,” he said.

Artan graduated with honors from Columbus State Community College last May, earning an associate of arts degree. A video of his graduation ceremony shows him jumping and spinning on stage and smiling broadly, drawing laughs, cheers and smiles from graduates and faculty members.

The school said he had no behavioral or disciplinary problems while he was there from the fall of 2014 until this past summer.

He started at Ohio State in August as a business student studying logistics management.

A law enforcement official said Artan came to the U.S. in 2014 as the child of a refugee. He had been living in Pakistan from 2007 to 2014. It is not uncommon for refugees to go to a third-party country before being permanently resettled.

Federal and local authorities grappling with the pervasiveness of Islamic State group propaganda – FBI Director James Comey said earlier this year that agents had “north of 1,000” terrorism-related probes – will no doubt look to see if they missed any red flags that could have placed Artan under investigation.

Omar Mateen

Several acts of jihadist-inspired violence in the past two years have involved individuals known to the FBI.

The FBI investigated Omar Mateen, the gunman in the Orlando nightclub attack in June, for 10 months in 2013 after he boasted of mutual acquaintances with the Boston Marathon bombers and said things to co-workers that suggested he had radical, violent intentions. Agents found nothing to justify continued scrutiny and closed the matter, but looked into him again the next year as part of a separate investigation into a suicide bomber who attended the same Florida mosque.

Federal authorities in 2014 looked into Ahmad Khan Rahimi after he was accused of stabbing a relative and his father expressed concerns he might be a terrorist. The FBI said it found nothing in its databases tying Rahimi to terrorism and closed its review. Rahimi was charged with setting off bombs in New York and New Jersey in September.

FBI counterterrorism authorities have a “number of trip wires” set up to spot would-be jihadists and have a generally good sense of individuals who are drawn to terrorist propaganda, which is why many people who have gone on to commit violence have at some point come under scrutiny, said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

“If you look at most quote-unquote successful terror attacks in the U.S. … they’ve always had some touch point with law enforcement and been on law enforcement’s radar in some point in their radical trajectory,” Hughes said.

Classes for the 60,000 students at Ohio State were canceled after the attack but resumed Tuesday. The school planned a vigil for Tuesday night. Three of the victims remained hospitalized but were expected to recover, according to an Ohio State medical official.

—

Tucker and Abdollah reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington; Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Collin Binkley in Boston; and Mark Gillispie in Cleveland contributed to this story, along with AP Dubai correspondent Jon Gambrell.

]]>http://khon2.com/2016/11/29/ohio-state-attacker-railed-against-us-intervention-in-muslim-lands/feed/0Wed, 30 Nov 2016 03:02:48 +0000APTOPIX Ohio State Active ShooterA car inside a police line sits on the sidewalk as authorities respond to an attack on campus at Ohio State University, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)This August 2016 image provided by TheLantern.com shows Abdul Razak Ali Artan in Columbus, Ohio. Authorities identified Abdul Razak Ali Artan as the Somali-born Ohio State University student who plowed his car into a group of pedestrians on campus and then got out and began stabbing people with a knife Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, before he was shot to death by an officer. (Kevin Stankiewicz/TheLantern.com via AP)Omar MateenMuslim American women fear wearing of hijabs leads to harassment, violencehttp://khon2.com/2016/11/29/muslim-american-women-fear-wearing-of-hijabs-leads-to-harassment-violence/
http://khon2.com/2016/11/29/muslim-american-women-fear-wearing-of-hijabs-leads-to-harassment-violence/#respondTue, 29 Nov 2016 22:47:10 +0000http://khon2.com/?p=186807]]>

(CNN) — Some Muslim American women are no longer wearing their traditional head scarves — their hijabs — afraid that displaying their religious faith could lead to harassment and violence.

“I went from expecting to be the center of attention, to nobody looking at me whatsoever,” said Marwa Abdelghani. “I felt a huge sense of relief. I didn’t feel like a target anymore.”

Since she was a senior in high school, Abdelghani wore the hijab whenever she was in public — a part of her Islamic faith, culture and identity.

But with this presidential election, that changed.

“I was walking on the street and a driver drove by me and slowed down, rolled down his window, and he just spit at me. … It was getting closer and closer to Nov. 8th (election day). That’s when I decided I was going to take it off for awhile.”

Since the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked more than 700 hate incidents. But Muslim American women say a year ago that their sense of safety began to change after a picture of San Bernardino killer Tashfeen Malik went public.

“After that, people started to see us differently,” said Samar Salem.

Muslim American women began taking self-defense classes, driven by fear.

Now, post-election, the women are sharing tips on social media and making a searing choice — their faith, or personal safety.

“The headscarf has become something that went from being a very spiritual element of a woman’s life to be something where she had to be scared to wear it,” said Abdelghani. “I myself didn’t feel like I wanted to continue with that fear.”

The only places she feels free to express that part of Islam is in the privacy of her apartment and her mosque.

To the incoming Trump administration, this young Muslim woman has this message: “When you hold that kind of position and you think it’s OJ to make these racist, Islamaphobic, sexist statements, there are people unfortunately, as crazy as they are, who look up to you. And they will follow you. And they will act out in response to what you’re saying.”

When asked if she’ll ever wear her hijab again in public, Abdelghani said “I hope so. I hope I can wear it again one day. I hope I can feel safe enough to do so.”

And practice one of the founding principles of America, freedom of religion.

(WPIX/CNN) — A teenager in New Jersey is taking an adrenaline rush to new heights … literally. He’s made it a habit of climbing New York high rises, often without any safety equipment.

And 19-year-old Justin Casquejo is refusing to stop, even though he’s gotten trouble with the law before for his stunts.

One of his latest videos shows the teen breaking into a Central Park high rise under construction, climbing to the roof with a friend and then dangling from the crane hoisted high above with just one arm.

Casquejo was arrested in 2014 for breaking into a fence at One World Trade and then climbing to the top of the building. He received 30 days of community service and was ordered to undergo counseling, as well as write a 1,200-word essay about that stunt.

But neighbors who know the teen say there is simply no stopping him. “I said to him ‘it’s dangerous for you to do this without proper gear.’ He said ‘if I don’t do it this way, I don’t feel good,'” said one man.

Another neighbor said Casquejo “wants to go to Dubai to do it, because in Dubai is a big, big building.”

After climbing the World Trade Center, he was arrested just two weeks after for climbing the Weehawken Water Tower. Since then, he has got nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram and climbed dozens of structures, including the George Washington Bridge.

Police are investigating Casquejo’s latest stunts and he could be charged with trespassing and reckless endangerment.

The recount comes at the request of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who says it’s important to determine whether hacking may have affected the results. Stein says she also plans to request recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

President-elect Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and has a small lead in Michigan.

There’s no evidence voter results were hacked or electronic voting machines were compromised.

While Hillary Clinton’s campaign formally joined Stein’s Wisconsin recount effort on Saturday, a lawyer for the Democratic campaign has said there is “no actionable evidence” of an altered outcome.

Wisconsin officials say it will be tough to finish the recount by the federally required deadline of Dec. 13.

Trump’s incoming chief of staff suggests Clinton is backing away from a deal worked out between the two presidential campaigns on how the loser would concede to the winner.

Reince Priebus told “Fox News Sunday” that Clinton’s team “cut a deal” with Trump’s team specifying that once The Associated Press called the race in favor of one candidate, the other would call within 15 minutes to concede.

Priebus says that’s just what happened election night.

But now he’s questioning whether Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias is backing down from that deal by announcing Clinton will participate in a recount in Wisconsin and may do the same in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

AP’s director of media relations, Lauren Easton, says AP “calls races when it is clear that one candidate has prevailed over the other. We have no knowledge of what the candidates do with that information until there is a public claim of victory or a concession.”

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is calling Clinton’s decision to join a recount effort “incredible” and noting that the president-elect has not ruled out pursuing a criminal investigation into his former Democratic rival.

Conway told CNN’s “State of the Nation” that Trump has not ruled out a criminal probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, even though Trump recently indicated he’d rather not do so.

She said, “He’s been incredibly gracious and magnanimous to Secretary Clinton at a time when, for whatever reason, her folks are saying they will join in a recount to try to somehow undo the 70-plus electoral votes that he beat her by.”

Conway added, “The idea that we are going to drag this out now where the president-elect has been incredibly magnanimous to the Clintons and to the Obamas is pretty incredible.”

Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning to condemn the Green Party-backed recount effort as “a scam.”